I've been neglecting to mention this for other games, but... I like the cover art.

Just Get the Treasure is a humoresque CYOA in what is becoming a fairly well-populated subgenre of IFComp entries. This one certainly has its own quirks and overall is probably a notch or two better than most, largely due to some very solid writing. Of course, your own reaction might depend heavily on the mood you're in at the time, with this one or anything of its ilk.

The game's chief weapon in its battle for humor is a nameless narrator who second-guesses all of your choices in absurdly long narrative detours. If that begins to get annoying, better come back later when you're three sheets to the wind. The title encapsulates the joke, being what you and your player-character will want to express. The banter is not an inner monologue, as the narrator just seems to be someone else, removed from the situation. I was reminded of this, for some reason:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku42Iszh9KM

There are trollish elements in play here, such as some options being hidden way, way off-screen downward. Or very short sequences of choices leading to very long, choiceless endings. And one time I ended up in a tour of the author's house.

But several other nuances gave me the overall impression that the idea was just to be funny, not to annoy the judges without payoff. And, let it be known, it is largely futile to try to annoy IFComp judges anyway. We've been to all nine layers of Hell before and sometimes enjoyed it.

Oh, I forgot to mention the plot of this game, but it's not important.

If you’re judging this for IFcomp (or just playing for fun), my advice is to give it the full judging period. This Twine story can be over in a few clicks, but if you think that’s all there is to this story, have I got an iceberg to sell to you.

In an IFcomp full of RPG, evil shape-shifting wizards, goblets and goblins, this one might not get much attention. There’s goblet, there’s a goblin. Probably course of action: Take A and Kill B or, for variety, Kill B then Take A. THINK should not even enter into the equation, yet in this game it does.

With the end of the contest in sight, I decided to update the game to allow players to quit from one of the easter egg/hidden games/bonus levels.

I had kind of liked the metaphorical implications of making the player force quit (or just undo) their way out of that particular bonus game once they started...but reading and watching reviews convinced me that it was detrimental to the overall play experience.

I also extended the description of how a room in that bonus game has "changed" in a way that (I hope) creates a connection with the overall story.

I quite liked this. As jepflast and dhakahack observe, it is the shaggiest of shaggy dog stories and calls for a lot of replaying. It's not just humor, either; some of the paths you can go down are heartfelt.

I quite liked this. As jepflast and dhakahack observe, it is the shaggiest of shaggy dog stories and calls for a lot of replaying. It's not just humor, either; some of the paths you can go down are heartfelt.

Thank you for the comments! I'm especially happy to see that you read some of the moments in a more sincere tone. I was worried that the amount of jokes and gags would mean that some of the straight moments would be read for laughs as well.

You got me on those cryptogram typos! I guess my goblinese is as rusty as the player character's! You went above and beyond to snag those! (I did the letter replace manually...I didn't even know there were cryptogram solvers that I could use for proofreading!)

I'm just worried about the people who get everything but the "d" in "ducking...."

FWIW the cryptogram solver I was using is quipqiup.com--note that the last one isn't "quip" but "qiup"--which has a few different modes that let you deal with proper names and typos and the like, and also has something that effectively lets you enter the key and force a translation. I feel like I should do these by hand but I'm lazy.

I'm just worried about the people who get everything but the "d" in "ducking...."

FWIW the cryptogram solver I was using is quipqiup.com--note that the last one isn't "quip" but "qiup"--which has a few different modes that let you deal with proper names and typos and the like, and also has something that effectively lets you enter the key and force a translation. I feel like I should do these by hand but I'm lazy.

MathBrush was generous enough to post a thoughtful review of JFtTv0.9.1 over at the IFDB.

Quote:

The Twine code is lovingly organized and garnished, with little extras here and there, either private jokes or Easter eggs for code-readers. The code branches all over, and has little Easter egg chunks...

The problem with this structure is that the player never sees it. As is common in this author-centered style, the cool content is hidden in branches the player is unlikely to take...

Another issue is that, because each play through is so short, most of the work is on content the player will never see...

So, this is a lovingly-crafted, well-written game, but if you want to see all of it, you need to put in a lot of work.

Just to prove MathBrush's point, I wanted to post an image of the story map. The best I can figure out how to manage at the moment is using the Twine thumbnail.

I prefer to let the game stand on its own, but I wanted to share that image because I thought it helped demonstrate what MathBrush was talking about. You can literally finish a game in four clicks, whereas some of the branches can take around 80 screens or so.

And you can just make out some of those stray, floating nodes in that thumbnail...

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